


Star Spangled Packin'

by giraffeswearpantyhose



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Disturbance of retail workers, Everything is very hilarious, Ficlet, First published work in like three years woo!, Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve and Bucky go shopping!, Steve has a huge package, bad at tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:25:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5350646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giraffeswearpantyhose/pseuds/giraffeswearpantyhose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky find "the best goddamn thing" Bucky has ever laid eyes on while out shopping for ornaments. Merciless ribbing ensues, hilarity is had by all, and Christmas has come early this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star Spangled Packin'

**Author's Note:**

> First off a million thank yous to curbitkirby, the lovely girl that encouraged me to write this and then read it and gave me all the positive feedback. Even more thank yous to her for the name. This is all her fault basically.
> 
> This fic came out of an idea I had after finding what might be the best ornament ever produced. The post with my picture of it can be found in the endnotes, and yes it is proudly hanging on my tree at home, offending all who witness it.
> 
> As always I do not own the material nor the characters, I am only borrowing them for my own entertainment.

“Stevie, hey, come look at old Iron Ass over here! They sure did fuck up his face on this one.”

They’re in some out of the way tourist shop, one of those that pops up around the holidays and only sells ugly novelty ornaments. They’re half-heartedly shopping for trinkets to fill the stockings Stark had semi-ironically nailed up in the common room of the Tower. Each is color coded to their costume and professionally embroidered with their codenames. Natasha suspects he found them on Etsy, possibly with help from Darcy. 

Their trip had quickly devolved into a hunt for the most comical Avengers merchandise so that they could mercilessly mock it, and buy their favorites for their teammates. They do this now, sometimes: go wandering the city just the two of them. It’s therapeutic for them both. Bucky is slowly learning to trust open spaces, though he still has trouble sitting with his back to windows or exits, and Steve is slowly getting back out into the world. He had thought that the city had changed beyond recognition, but it turns out that the New York he loved is still there under the new additions. The sidewalks feel the same, and the hot dogs are as questionable as ever.

“Steve, hey, earth to America pal. Look what they did to Stark.” Bucky thrusts the figure in question under Steve’s nose. It’s a tiny recreation of Stark in full Iron Man attire, and the paint job on the face plate is indeed pretty fucked up. One of the black eye squares has drifted down toward the tiny cheekbone. But Steve is too distracted by the horror he just witnessed to give it the attention it really deserves.  

Bucky, of course, catches on right away. “What’s got you blushing like that? I don’t think I’ve seen you that red since your ma caught us with those blue magazines when we were twelve.” Steve, usually so receptive to memories of the old days, especially when Bucky offers them of his own volition, can’t even look at him. He continues to study the floor as though it holds the secrets to all creation.

Bucky can’t remember a lot, but he remembers that look on Steve’s face, and he grins bright and big as a loon at the sight of it. Whatever it is has gotta be real bad if it’s got Steve that embarrassed. He looks all around them in eager anticipation of the mocking to come. Quickly, the source becomes clear to him. Steve, in a haze of horrified chagrin and with the grace of a scalded cat had shoved the offending ornament back onto the shelf as soon as he got a look at it, leaving it terribly crooked and sticking out obviously from the others.

At first glance, Bucky doesn’t know what the problem is. He shoves up into Steve’s space to examine it. Steve stays where he is, a comforting barrier between Bucky and the rest of the aisle, head still hung in shame and shuffling his feet like a schoolboy in trouble. The ornament in question is a figurine similar to the Iron Man one. It shows Steve in the costume he had worn when he fought the Chitauri invasion. The expression is comical, sure, and the paint job leaves a lot to be desired, but they had seen way worse earlier in the day, and it hadn’t made Steve blush like this.

He continues his perusal. The figure holds a ridiculous pose, knees bent and spread, one arm holding the shield and the other flexed up with a fist that is comically oversized. The sculptor has given him bulging biceps and pecs so large and square they could be cinderblocks, along with lovingly detailed individual abs that can be traced through the costume. All of this combined wouldn’t be enough to make Steve blush like that. He looks a little lower and sees _it_.

_It_ is maybe the best thing Bucky has ever laid eyes on in his unnaturally long, fucked up life. Right below those overdone abs and right above the candy red go-go boots, the sculptor has given the little Cap a distended bulge in the too-tight blue costume pants. It comes complete with folds in the pants to further accentuate the huge package the ornamental Captain is sporting.

“Why Steven Grant Rogers, this ornament has a _boner,_ ” he exclaims. Bucky is so delighted he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Christmas has come early. It’s everything he didn’t know he wanted.

Steve, if possible, blushes even redder, hunching his shoulders up around his ears and looking like he wishes he was still small and skinny, so as to more easily be swallowed up by the floor. He puts up a token protest, “C’mon Buck you know those things don’t have anything to do with me. They’re from the comics and the shows and such from after I went under,” but he knows he’ll never get away from the ribbing to come.

Completely ignoring Steve’s bashful denial, Bucky is half buried in ornaments, digging way into the back of the shelf and filling his arms with as many of the miniature Captains as he can carry. “Did we get a basket? We need a basket. Everyone we know is getting one of these.” The giggles have started now, and Bucky starts dumping the ornaments he can’t hold into Steve’s limp hands. Steve thinks absently about how strange they must look: two grown men holding dozens of poorly made superhero ornaments, one laughing like a madman the entire time.

The entire situation only gets funnier to Bucky the more he thinks about it. Steve standing there stone still and silent, red as a tomato and letting Bucky tease him, the serendipity of having found the thing at all, the fact that the damn ornament went into mass production in the first place. It all combines in his scrambled egg brain to become the funniest damn thing he’s ever heard. Soon he’s bent almost double, howling with laughter, gripping one of Steve’s big shoulders to keep himself upright. Some of the boxes fall from the top of the stack he’s holding as he heaves and cries with hilarity. 

“Oh Stevie, oh god.” He’s lost himself completely to laughter, eyes squeezed closed, accentuating the lines there. His face is more open than Steve has seen it since before the war. He throws his head back and grins and then falls forward again, rocking Steve with him a little. All his teeth show in his smile and there’s no trace of the new, quiet Bucky in the unrestrained delight. Before he knows it Steve is giggling along with him, then he’s laughing quietly, and in seconds he’s right there with his best friend, laughing like the kids they never really got to be.

Both of them have tears streaming down their faces and grins that stretch so big they hurt their cheeks. Each time they begin to sober up their eyes meet and they set each other off again. They cling to one another like drunks, stumbling and bending close till their foreheads brush. Steve can’t think of the last time he laughed like this, it might have been before Bucky shipped out, or maybe sometime with the Howlies, but it wasn’t anytime in this new century. God, he missed it. He _missed_ it. He missed Bucky’s deep, awful laugh, a sound like an animal dying. He missed his best friend, the other half of his heart.

Eventually the laughter subsides, though they both chuckle occasionally. For a minute they just look at one another. Steve is sure that his face is too open, showing all of the fond love and soul-deep appreciation he feels at having Bucky back at his side. Bucky’s face is a little wary again, as it always is in this new century, but it’s less so than it was when they left for the store. In Bucky’s eyes and in the smirk playing around his mouth Steve can see his own feelings reflected. 

They pick up the dropped ornaments and stand for a second in the aisle. “Well,” Bucky says, “while we’re here want to see if they made Thor’s hammer the same?” This is accompanied by a grin so lewd it’d make a sailor blush, and as one they’re off again, laughing like all the world’s burdens have been lifted.

***

They end up leaving with just one of the Captain America figurines. They buy one of each of the other Avengers to put in their respective stockings, and as a way to apologize to the store owners for all their ruckus. The ornament goes up on the little tree that stands on their barely used kitchen table in their apartment in the Tower. Bucky chuckles lightly when he passes by it and Steve, well Steve feels a little lighter for it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments keep me alive!
> 
> If you feel that you need a visual representation of that beautiful ornament, Liz made a post featuring my picture of it here: http://curbitkirby.tumblr.com/post/134508596346/my-lovely-beta-gillian-sent-me-this-pic-she-was


End file.
